"Indade, it was another. Ye didn't think it was the same rail I've been putting down every day for six years or so. When I fix a rail it stays, it does."
"Leave the train there till morning," urged Torrance; "we'll unload it first thing."
"Lave thim, is it?" shouted Murphy. "Lave thim on the main line! Not likely! When I lave this man-trap, they go too."
"Murphy, you're a bad-tempered little stickler to rules that don't mean a cuss. There isn't another train within a hundred miles or so, except west; there won't be one this way for days."
"I didn't know ye'd done so well as a bridge builder they'd made ye train-despatcher too," sneered Murphy. "Build a siding and I'll take a chance, though it ain't fair to Molly. Ye'll nade one anyway. Trains ought to have a chance to pull up where it's safe and say their prayers before tempting Providence on those straws. Why don't ye set up a saloon where the passengers can get drunk first—"
"Look here, man, the whole camp's at supper. They wouldn't work an extra hour for the devil."
"Why don't ye let somebody else ask thim thin? Of course if they've got ye scared—"
Torrance knew the danger of demanding overtime even when necessitated by their own devilish destruction. He knew the added risk since the recent camp fight. But the suggestion of danger threw precaution to the winds. Taking a nickel whistle from his pocket he stepped on the trestle and blew a long blast.
The camp lay quiet and clear in the late afternoon sun, a long line of sluggish smoke marking the cook-houses. A few minutes more and the lazy evening life would filter out over the river bottom. At the moment five hundred mouths were working as if their lives depended on it, five hundred pairs of eyes were looking for the next plate to devour.
First to appear in answer to the summons was Adrian Conrad, the one to whom it was directed. He took in the situation at a glance, even without Torrance's pointing arm, and made straightway for the cook-houses. From the open door of one of them Koppy's head appeared, and disappeared as quickly. He, too, understood.